In gnuplot, is hypertext available also for bargraphs? I see a popup in term svg, but did not find a way to change it

I would like to create active content evaluations of KPIs. For that I would like to use the mouse over function as availabe e.g. for the point style (hypertext.dem).

Is or will this be available for bargraphs also? I the plot I see a popup displaying my "using" statements, but I did not find a way to modify it with the "with labels hypertext" statements.

enter image description here

The only workaround I see for now is to add another plot on top with point style that would popup the hypertext.

I tried things in gnuplot version 6.0 and 6.0.2.

Here is a script that I generated (tipps from theozh included):

reset session
set datafile separator ","
set xtics nomirror rotate by 0
set style data histogram
set style histogram rowstacked title textcolor lt -1
set boxwidth 0.75
set style fill solid 0.3 border
unset key
set key noautotitle

# I need a lookup table to show relevant text to the KPIs in columns 6 and every 3rd column thereafter to 23*3
array Cat[4000]
Cat[1]=''
Cat[1110]='Text 1110'
Cat[1122]='this means something 1122'
Cat[1123]='this means sth different 1123'
Cat[1124]='this yet means sth slightly different 1123'
Cat[2242]='Here some more text 2242'
Cat[2230]='Here some more text 2230'
Cat[3340]='has another meaning 3340'
Cat[4000]='Text_4000'
Cat2label(position) = sprintf("%d\n%s", column(position),Cat[column(position)])

set output "KPI_2025_02.svg"
set term svg size 1280,300 mousing jsdir './js/'

set style histogram rowstacked title textcolor lt -1

# I need a multiplot, because more is shown (not relevant here)
set multiplot layout 1,2
set bmargin 1.6

set size 0.85,1.000000
set origin 0,0.000000

#this plots stacked vertical bars up to 24h, one per day (x-direction), additionally KPI short text is plotted as labels
p [-0.5:31.5][0:24]\
  for [i=0:23] "datafile_gp.dat" u i*3+4:i*3+5:xtic(sprintf("%02d",$3)) lc variable, \
  for [i=0:23] "datafile_gp.dat" u :(((Cat2label(i*3+6))!=1) ? (sum [k=0:i] column(3*k+4)) : 3/0):i*3+6 w labels font "arial,8" tc rgb "black" offset -0.1,-0.25

set size 0.85,1.000000
set origin 0.0,0.000000

#this is the critical part that should generate the hypertext popups:
p [-0.5:31.5][0:24]\
  for [i=0:23] "datafile_gp.dat" u ($0+0.4):(((Cat2label(i*3+6))!="1") ? (sum [k=0:i] column(k*3+4))-0.5 : 3/0):(Cat2label(i*3+6)):i*3+5 lc variable with labels hypertext point pt 5 ps 0.5

unset multiplot

And here my datafile that needs to be saved as "datafile_gp.dat":

2025,02,01,24.0,3,2242, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1
2025,02,02,24.0,3,2242, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1
2025,02,03, 6.0,3,2242, 1.0,3,2230, 5.0,2,1110, 3.0,2,1122, 2.0,3,2230, 7.0,3,2242, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1
2025,02,04, 6.0,3,2242, 1.0,3,2230, 3.0,2,1122, 2.0,2,1123, 1.0,1,3340, 1.0,2,1124, 2.0,2,1110, 1.0,2,1122, 7.0,3,2242, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1, 0.0,0,   1

A solution to this questions probably requires some "tricks". As far as I know, with labels hypertext can only use anchor points. It would be nice if there might be a feature for hypertext for arbitrary areas, e.g. like filledcurves on a map (maybe in the future?). However, it wouldn't be gnuplot if there isn't a workaround. At least for the simpler case of bars or rectangles.

So, if your mouse is above the anchor point, the hypertext will be displayed.

• you can set the point shape via pointtype, e.g. pt 5 is a filled square
• you can also set the size via pointsize, e.g. ps 5

Hence, for the simplest case

1. plot an anchor point on top at the top of the bar
2. set the size of the point such that it covers approximately the width of the bar. Keep in mind that the proportions of point to canvas size might be different in different terminals
3. make the anchor points invisible, by setting color fully transparent, e.g. lc rgb 0xff123456, the mouse will still react, although the point is invisible

This will look like this: (just for illustration, the alpha channel is not set to full transparency, but only to 0xee). The corresponding part of the plot command would look like this:

    '' u 1:2:2 w labels hypertext point pt 5 ps 5 lc rgb 0xee123456

However, if you want the whole bar to react to mouse hovering, simply place several anchor points on top of each bar.

Script:

### hypertext for the whole area of bar grahps
reset session

# create some random test data
set table $Data
    set samples 9
    plot '+' u ($0+1):(rand(0)*10+1) w table
unset table

set boxwidth 0.9
set style fill solid 0.5
set yrange[0:]
set key noautotitle

stats $Data u 2 nooutput
Nmax = 8
dy0  = STATS_max/(Nmax-1)

plot $Data u 1:2 w boxes lc rgb 0xff0000, \
     for [i=0:Nmax] $Data u 1:(dy=$2/ceil($2/dy0), i*dy>1.1*$2 ? NaN : i*dy):2 \
         w labels hypertext point pt 5 ps 5 lc rgb 0xee123456
### end of script

Result:

Screenshot from qt terminal:

Unfortunately, you cannot upload SVGs in StackOverflow, hence, here a screen capture from SVG in Firefox browser: set color to full transparency, i.e. lc rgb 0xff123456 to let the squares disappear.

For creating a SVG, modify the script to something like this:

...
set term svg mouse standalone
set output "SO79497533.svg"
plot ...
set output